Financing Manufacturing’s Digital Future

One of the more attractive prospects of the Internet of Things (IoT)—and digital manufacturing, in general—has been that taking part in this industrial evolution does not require manufacturers to rip and replace their legacy equipment with all-new, IoT-ready versions of digital technologies. Numerous options exist for retrofitting legacy machinery with new devices for digital data delivery or applying updated analysis software capabilities to data already being collected.

But with the average age of equipment in most U.S. manufacturing plants being 20 years old or older, at least some level of equipment replacement will be necessary to take full advantage of manufacturing’s digital future.